Infection? Vinegar-smell

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Steve-n-Son

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Croton-on-Hudson
So I was brewing my third batch of beer to date, an Imperial pale ale from a brewer's best kit. OG 1.079. After a week from brew day I opened the primary to take a reading and I saw some things on the surface of the beer that I hadn't seen before. I took a wiff and is smelled very vinegary and stung my nose (though I've been led to believe that's co2). I put it in the secondary and a week later I tasted it before bottling. It didn't taste sour or musky, just like beer. I had sanitized all my equipment thoroughly using star-sans.
FG was 1.018.

I was hoping that someone would be able to tell me if these are signs of a bacterial infection.

I've posted 4 pics of the beer after a week in the primary and another one of the beer sitting in the bottling bucket a week after that, where there was a film on the beer which I skimmed off before bottling.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
I find acetaldehyde often gives a vinegary aroma that's not present in the taste. It's often because the beer is just too young, in my experience.

An infection can't be ruled out, but I wouldn't worry about it for now.
 
Whoops, here are the images

IMG-20120719-00075.jpg


IMG-20120719-00080.jpg


IMG-20120719-00081.jpg


IMG-20120719-00083.jpg


IMG-20120724-00085.jpg
 
I have never seen #4 picture, so maybe someone else has, but 1-3 look like yeast to me, no infection. In fact, my beer looks like that now, dry yeast type.
 
All of your pictures look normal and I've seen the exact same thing in my beer. #1-3 are yeast rafts. Certain strains will do this. In #4 the sheen is left over from either the StarSan or high hopping rate. I've heard both explanations but don't know for sure which is true. Either way your beer is mostly likely fine. Go ahead and let it carb and try one after a few weeks. Let us know how it turns out!
 
The beer is has been bottle conditioned for 3 weeks now and it's a little flat and otherwise great! Thanks for the guidance, and cheers! :mug:

-Steve
 
Steve-n-Son said:
The beer is has been bottle conditioned for 3 weeks now and it's a little flat and otherwise great! Thanks for the guidance, and cheers! :mug:

-Steve

Good news! Bigger beers like that can take a while to fully carbonate.
 

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